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She would make no promise she did not mean to keep,
he thought, and he found himself wondering what she might promise, and to whom, and when. Then he remembered her tale of murder done in her family and the rough shout at the high king himself when she thought she had been dismissed. She would never act like Lady Fiona, much less like Lady Braith. For her, the flashes of humor were rare. Rarer still seems glimpses of genuine happiness. No, games of love were not for such a one.

Then why do I keep thinking on her that way?
he asked himself, and he found he had no answer.

In front of him, Lady Fiona's horse suddenly stumbled, causing her to fall back behind Lady Mavis whom she'd been riding beside. She reined the mare up and looked about her in seeming confusion. Mavis also made to stop, but Fiona waved her on, coaxing the horse to the side of the road to let the rest of the procession pass. Cursing under his breath, Gareth urged his own horse forward. He swung down and offered Fiona his hand so that she could dismount with matronly propriety.

“I fear she has taken a stone, Squire Gareth,” said Lady Fiona. “Will you look?”

But as she spoke, Lady Lynet rode past them, watching Gareth as he stood beside Fiona. She should have been up front with the queen and the ladies, but it was her habit to ride back down the line several times during the day, to speak with her own captain and his men. Their eyes met and he felt his shoulders straighten a little. He thought to see disapproval or disappointment in her, but what he saw instead was a weary resignation. She turned her face and gaze rigidly forward and urged her dapple-grey palfrey into a faster trot.

“Squire Gareth?” said Fiona. “My horse?”

“Of course, my lady,” Gareth dragged his attention back to the task at hand. The brown mare was a reasonable creature and let him lift her right fore-hoof and rest it on his knee. She whickered, snorted and leaned comfortably on his shoulder while he probed the hoof, especially the soft frog. “There's no stone,” he said to Lady Fiona. “It was just a stumble. This road is not so smooth as it would seem.”

“As a man may be less devoted than he seems,” Fiona replied with a strained smile.

Gareth patted the mare's shoulder to warn her she would have to take her own weight now, and set her hoof down. “What sign of devotion should I have sent you from the kitchens, my lady?” he asked softly.

“When you sent not a one to me?”

Anger flared behind her eyes. Gareth knew that was the sign for him to apologize and to compliment. Another day, he would have enjoyed the game. He loved seeing her anger melt away and turn to delight at the merest word from him. But he remained silent, bent double beside her horse, and let her snap at him. “How could I have done that? The queen watches me so close, I can barely draw breath.”

“Then she is sure to notice you standing here now.” Gently, Gareth felt the mare's ankle and knee, making sure there was no tenderness or sign of swelling. “Why the risk now, my lady?”

“Why do you spend your time mooning over that doe-eyed Lady Lynet?” she shot back.

A cold finger touched the back of Gareth's neck. He straightened, laying one hand on the mare's shoulder. “She is in need of help, and it is my duty as the king's man to offer it.”

“Oh yes, I'm sure she needs a great deal of help from you.” Fiona's words were needle sharp. “The sort she received from Sir Tristan for helping in the cuckolding of the queen.”

Gareth found himself standing very still. “What?” he asked softly.

“She has so far neglected to mention that, I suppose.” Lady Fiona stepped up in front of him and took the reins he had slung over the saddle. “That it was she who ran messages between the lovers. Perhaps even took money from the king to betray them. A fine lady for you to tip your heart toward.” Ignoring his move to help her, Fiona mounted her horse again. “Be mindful, Gareth,” she said her voice suddenly soft, but the needles were still there, only covered over. “Not all will love you as I do.” She brushed his shoulder fleetingly and smiled her warm smile, still so full of those unkept promises. Then, she touched up her horse, and trotted away to catch up with the queen and the other ladies.

Gareth stayed where he was, feeling very much at sea. He remembered Lynet standing on her injured feet before the queen, refusing to sit or drink or in anyway ease herself until her plight had been heard. He thought of the way she jerked back, so dismayed when he kissed her hand in a salute of respect. How she had looked at him as she passed a moment ago with such heartbreaking resignation.

Fiona declared this maiden, this lady, had taken bribes first from Tristan then from the king? No. It was not possible. Such a deed was not the work of one so deeply wounded. There was another story there.

Which meant Fiona had lied to him as well as warned him away from another woman, a maiden, a woman of rank who had no husband to prevent her from being paid honorable attention.

Where in God's name does
that
thought come from?

But before he could begin to answer his own question, he heard Lionel calling his name.

“Gareth!” Lionel cantered down from the head of the procession. “Gareth! Sir Lancelot is looking for you!”

Gareth swung himself back up into his saddle, and followed Lionel, ducking under tree branches, and maneuvering his horse around the larger stones and hump-backed roots. As quickly as he could, he brought himself up to where Sir Lancelot waited, well ahead of the procession, watching it come toward him like some kind of questing beast.

“Blow the signal to halt, Gareth,” said the knight tersely.

“What's happened, my lord?” asked Gareth, reaching for the horn that dangled from his saddle beside his bags and blankets.

“Sir Ruawn hasn't come back.”

Gareth's heart thumped once, hard. Sir Ruawn had been sent out the day before, with three mounted men-at-arms, and Brendon to carry a chest of gold and silver from the queen to present to “King” Telent of the Rosveare, who held this valley. Telent was not a city man, and his people where not a single clan, said Sir Ruawn, whose people had come from south of this place. They were a loose and quarrelsome group of families who were willing to follow Telent and the council of their patriarchs, as long as Telent did not ask much of them in time of peace. As a result, the treasure had to be enough for Telent to share out across a dozen families to keep them pacified long enough for their caravan to cross the valley, and spend the night in relative security, hopefully in the remains of the fortress on the hill.

Gareth felt a sharp prod of guilt. He didn't like Brendon. He didn't like his carping and sneering and non-stop insinuations that the only reason Gareth was back in Sir Lancelot's good graces was because of his uncle's intervention, which hurt all the more because it was very close to the truth. Still, Brendon was also Sir Lancelot's squire and Gareth should have noticed his absence before this, rather than just being grateful for the peace.

Gareth blew three long notes on the horn. The leaders of the procession, the ladies and knights and men on horseback, reined their horses in, the men on foot just stopped where they were, cursing mildly, passing questions back and forth, some taking a moment to instantly lean against trees or carts, or just flop down onto their backsides.

“Come with me, both of you,” said Sir Lancelot. “We need to tell Her Majesty. I doubt she'll like what she hears.” He touched up his roan palfrey, and they fell in behind as he approached the queen. Queen Guinevere, in turn, motioned for her ladies to stay behind her. Lynet though, did not seem to be included in the instruction, and she rode up beside the queen to meet them.

“What is the matter, Sir Lancelot?” asked the queen.

While his knight explained, Gareth found himself watching Lynet. She sat her horse well, as he had seen. She wasn't watching the queen, or attending to the conversation. She was looking ahead, as if measuring the miles. He could see her counting hours and days in her mind, wishing there were not so many. Her hand strayed time and again to the leather purse that hung beside her small ring of keys, and he wondered what it was she kept there. Then, as if she felt his regard, and turned her face toward him. She did not smile, or blush, or show any sign of surprise, let alone pleasure. Her face held only that same weary resignation he had seen before. It was the face of one who had seen too much battle, and knew there was yet another one coming. What had he done that she should regard him in that way?

Or what has been done to her?

“I will take Gareth, Lionel and three others down to the valley and find out what has happened,” Sir Lancelot was saying and the sound of his name brought Gareth back sharply to the matter at hand. “That should be enough to deal with whatever is there.” Sir Lancelot spoke with easy unconcern. There was even a relish to his words. His eyes were lit in a way they had not been since the tedious march had begun.

“And should you not come back, my lord?” asked Queen Guinevere.

Sir Lancelot grinned at her as he bowed. “Pray for my soul, Majesty. And Sir Ioan can lead you fast around the valley, or back to Camelot for a larger force of arms.”

The queen clearly did not like that answer, or the knight's grin, she also, however, saw no alternative. “Then God be with you, my lord,” she said curtly She turned her delicate palfrey around and rode back to her ladies with Lynet following silently beside her.

Lynet did not look back at him.

“There's a lesson for you, my men,” murmured Sir Lancelot. “The greater the love, the sharper the tongue.”

Love?
The word slapped against Gareth.
What was Sir Lancelot doing speaking of love from the queen, even in jest?

“Bring me Taranis, Gareth,” said Sir Lancelot. “And both of you arm yourselves.”

Gareth was glad to obey. The activity drove his knight's strange choice of words from his mind. The ritual of securing his leather and bronze armor, and helping the knight into his steel mail, made it clear to his mind and body that there was to be a battle. Excitement surged into him. He buckled on his sword, slung his shield over his back and mounted Achaius, who danced to show Gareth he was ready to stretch his legs and hoping for a real run. Gareth accepted his spear from one of the younger boys. This was no blunt, light practice stick, but the true spear with its iron tip that could be hurled at an enemy or used to spit him. Lionel met his eyes soberly from the back of his own war horse, and together they rode to where their knight was waiting with the other armed and mounted men.

Sir Lancelot towered over them both on his great red stallion. He surveyed Gareth, Lionel, and the three men riding with them and gave a nod of approval. Then, they rode past the silent stares of the procession, and the queen.

And Lynet. He tried to catch her eye but could not tell if he succeeded. Behind her, though, Lady Fiona looked at him with shining eyes. He managed a gallant smile for her, but nothing of the love or anticipation he was used to feel when he looked at her came to him.

The forest thinned quickly as they came to the valley's rim. The clouds overhead had begun to break apart, sending down shafts of warm sunlight to illuminate the lowlands, making it look like a painting of a saint's abode on a church wall. One beam lit up the stone-and-timber walls of the old fortress that watched them from the valley's opposite wall. Gareth could see no movement up there, no watch kept or signal given. All activity seemed to be centered around a cluster of rude dwellings on the valley floor. They were round and straw thatched and smoke drifted up out of the holes in their roofs. There was not even a proper long house let alone a hall.

Patches of the valley floor were cleared for cultivation. Cows, black, white and red, grazed where they would. They rode past these unimpeded. In the village before them, they'd finally been noticed. It wasn't until they neared the village they were finally noticed. A woman's scream rose up, and she and her fellows ran, snatching up their children and ducking into their houses.

That doesn't bode well,
thought Gareth and he set his jaw.

Sir Lancelot continued to canter onward, completely unperturbed, even as they could plainly see the men who gathered in the gaps between the round houses begin to cluster and crowd together, watching their approach. The knight reined up Taranis before this uneasy gathering, and swept them with his gaze, sizing them up for what they were, a cadre of unarmed and untrained men, wondering if they should even try to stave off a knight on horseback.

“I seek King Telent,” he announced. “Who here can take me to him?”

“Telent is dead!” called back one man.

The crowd parted, gladly, Gareth thought, to let the speaker through. He was a small, hairy mountain of a man, with arms and legs equally bowed. The tattoo of a bull ran down his right arm, underneath a quantity of red-brown hair. His beard and hair were both long enough to divide into three braids, and his only clothing was leather breeches and boots, and a kind of loose leather kilt over them. He looked up at Sir Lancelot with a pair of piggish black eyes and folded his arms. A bronze torque had been twisted around his neck, and he wore bronze rings on both meaty, bare arms. He wore, unusually for such an outland chief, a sword at his side. Then, with a shock, Gareth realized he knew the blade. It belonged to Sir Ruawn.

“And who are you, Master?” asked Lancelot.

The hairy mountain grinned, showing several black and broken teeth. “You can call me
King
Enor!” He sniggered as he said it, and several of the men joined in nervously. All of which left Gareth no doubt at all that Telent had not met his death peacefully.

He watched the houses behind the men, seeing only vague movement inside. He scanned the hillsides. They had been stripped of timber long since, and offered few hiding places. He saw no movement. That left the fort. Crumbling as it was, if “King” Enor was going to conceal his fighting force, there was no where else to put them.